Friday

In every culture and society, some things you are socially and culturally allowed to do with your hair, and other things you are not. These rules are not always explicit, but in workplaces and schools they are sometimes part of the internal regulations.

Here the link (click) to an article from the Jamaican writer Kei Miller's blog,
about a controversy in a Jamaican school (2016), explaining why, in the
particular context of Jamaica, it is more that just a haircut we are
talking about: Yes, this is about slavery and its long legacy. It is about a full emancipation that has been so desperately long in coming.
Read also Corey Hairstory (click) about natural hair at school and the difference of reception between a Jamaican school and New York one.

In 2018, a court decision in Jamaica clears the way for dreadlocked child to start school (links here).

(Photo from Kei Miller's blog)

And here the link (click) to an article about haircuts that are not allowed in different schools in England (2017 - with a remember of olds days:

Here is how she present it on the website consacred to the project - MAD FREE Website (click):The Hair Tales is created to affirm Black Women, inform
non-Black people about Black Women and inspire the world through Black
women’s beautiful curly, kinky and coily journey.

After nearly 5
years of analyzing the senseless relentless Black death on CNN and other
public

Monday

Thanks to all of you who participate to the Hair Project. About a hundred of Hair Stories were collected during the Jamaica Biennial 2017 (26/02 - 28/05/2017 - National Gallery of Jamaica). Readable Here

(…) Over the years, I've experimented with so many looks (including wigs) and it's felt like a social experiment on how people experience me based on my hair. It's truly incredible how freely people provide their feedback and how diversely I've been perceived.

Depending on where you are in the world and the social climate, the importance and value of hair shifts. Some people assume I have cancer, others think I'm a rebel. The most difficult aspect of the condition is not being in control. I didn't ask to be part of this conversation but I'm so thankful for the lessons it has a provided me. I've found the more I love and respect myself as I am, the more capable I am of pouring out love on everyone around me. I'm reminded daily of how fragile our condition is and it simply makes me smile. All we have is now.

Saturday

(...) Barbers also take on the role of counsellors, listening to clients agonise over their love lives or confide in them about family crises. The barber shop provides a safe space for people to sit back and unwind - after all, it's important to feel relaxed as someone takes a knife to your chin or a pair of scissors to your head. (...)

Hair is a 1979 musical war comedy-drama film adaptation of the 1968 Broadway musical Hair: An American Tribal Love-Rock Musical about a Vietnam War draftee who meets and befriends a tribe of long-haired hippies on his way to the army induction center. The film was directed by Miloš Forman.

The musical’s title song begins as character Claude slowly croons his reason for his long hair, as tribe-mate Berger joins in singing they deem they “don’t know.” They lead the tribe, singing “Give me a head with hair,” “as long as God can grow it,” listing what they want in a head of hair and their uses for it. Later the song takes the tune of “The Star-Spangled Banner” with the tribe punning “Oh say can you see/ My eyes if you can/Then my hair’s too short!” Claude and Berger’s religious references continue with many a “Hallelujah” as they consciously compare their hair to Jesus’s, and if Mary loved her son, “why don’t my mother love me?”

The song shows the Tribe's enthusiasm and pride for their hair as well as comparing Claude to a Jesus figure.